IAM001 – How This CEO & Founder of an Embroidery Company Starts Her Day with the Word

Cathy H Harkless is the founder of Yhtack in Stitches. Yhtack in Stitches is an embroidery company offering embroidery & digitizing of logos, designs, and images. They personalize, individualize and customize products for their clients. Their talented team consists of needle arts have a passion for crochet and embroidery personalizing gifts with bling and embellishment for gift giving for life events such as babies, birthdays, weddings, retirements, memorials, gift baskets, and our gorgeous line of realtor gift baskets. The Yhtack team strives to exceed their client's expectations by imagining the possibilities in the amazing world of needle arts.

CEO Hack: Scripture and the Daily Word & Book Mentioned “Called to Create”: amzn.to/2vndlv4
CEO Nugget: Nike's “Just do it” & Never Give Up
CEO Defined: Flexibility to be creative and create your own schedule

E-Mail: yhtackinstitches@ymail.com
Phone: (703) 680-3416
Website: www.yhtack.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/yhtack/
Twitter: twitter.com/yh_tack
Facebook: www.facebook.com/yhtack

Transcription:

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place, Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I am CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today Cathy Harkless from the Yhtack Stitches. Cathy is great to have you on the show.

Cathy H Harkless 0:39

Thank you, Gresham. Thanks for having me.

Gresham Harkless 0:42

No problem, no problem. And if you don't know Cathy is my mom. So I wanted to make sure to kick off the show I wanted to have Cathy or aka my mom on the show. And what I wanted to do was just read a little bit about her and all the things that she's been able to accomplish. Cathy H. Harkless is the founder of the Yhtack in Stitches. Yhtack in Stitches is an embroidery company offering embroidery and digitizing of logos designs and images. They personalize and individualize and customize. Their talented team consists of needle arts, and have a passion for crochet embroidery, personalizing gifts with bling and embellishment for gift giving for life events such as babies' birthdays, weddings, retirements, memorials, gift baskets, and their gorgeous line of realtor baskets. And the team strives to exceed their client's expectations by imagining the possibilities and the amazing world of needle arts. So Cathy, are you ready to get started in speaking to the I AM CEO community?

Cathy H Harkless 1:42

I'm very excited too.

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Gresham Harkless 1:45

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, the first thing I wanted to do was just kind of give you the floor to ask if you could tell your CEO story about what has led you to this part of your life, and in your business.

Cathy H Harkless 1:56

Um, that was in the corporate world for quite a few years, actually started Yhtack in Stitches about 10 years ago, as a part-time gig. And actually, I started doing things for my family. Actually started with you doing things when you went to college, personalizing things and doing things for your journey at college, college life, college logos, and then also doing things that people loved. You like basketball people like pets. People have different passions in life. And it's nice to capture that in embroidery in the needle arts.

Gresham Harkless 2:46

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Yeah, it has been very true that sometimes if I'm wondering where I'm going throughout my life, I can look back and see what I have embroidered. And that means that's probably the stage of life that I'm at. So it makes perfect sense. Could you tell us a little bit more about your products and services that you provide for your clients.

Cathy H Harkless 3:04

The products that we actually provide are a line of products that could be logos for a business or could be designed that are personal. It could be images that people have. And we actually digitize those, and we actually been embroidered them. We do any type of embroidery, we do logos, we do monograms, we do names. There are a lot of people now that have been in that have unique names, and unique spelling, and sometimes it can be a family name. And we can carry that from one generation to another. We provide baby blankets, we provide prayer shawls, and we provide everything for every life event that can happen in a person's life.

Gresham Harkless 3:57

Awesome, awesome. Awesome. And I know that obviously, I know you're based in the DMV, the DC, Maryland, and Virginia areas I like to call it. So what do you think makes you and your organization unique from other embroidery businesses or businesses that might be in the area around the world?

Cathy H Harkless 4:12

The personalization and customization that we do. We actually do unique things for our unique customers. Just the other day one of our projects was actually a retirement gift that we actually embroidered a speedo, with patches for a Marine who is retiring, and then we personalize the back of the speedo with the retiree. Our orders are very unique. Our clients are very unique. And they come with whatever they can imagine, and then we take that and we imagine the possibilities. That's our tagline. And that seems to have taken us over the last couple of years and it doesn't seem to stop as they get more unique and more specialized, based on what the client requires or asks, we push the envelope.

Gresham Harkless 5:10

That makes perfect sense. So it's funny because a lot of people have these ideas of all these great things that they want to do, or they want to create. But a lot of times, they don't know exactly how to create and it sounds like you bridge that gap where you're able to see what somebody's vision might be, but actually able to execute that for their specific business or their specific vision of I should say.

Cathy H Harkless 5:33

Very true.

Gresham Harkless 5:35

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, one of the big things that we try to do on the I AM CEO podcast is really to get the opportunity to see what CEO hack or thing that you use in your business or in your life that kind of has helped you as a CEO or helped you as an entrepreneur help you as a business owner. Could you explain maybe one thing that you have used or continue to use that has been really great for your business?

Cathy H Harkless 6:00

Um, I do a lot of embroidery for the church. And I'm led by scripture, I read daily word each and every day. And that kind of takes me as the business head and meeting a lot of different and unique people. And somehow they're led to me. And actually, embroidery in scripture is very exciting to me. To see it in print based on when I was a little girl growing up, my grandfather and I used to talk about the scripture back and forth. And it's kind of unique that I get the opportunity now to embroider and stitch it out.

Whether I put it on a t-shirt for someone or a prayer shawl for someone and see their response and what it means to them. That inspires me actually read the scripture, I have this book that also, in reading, Called to Create, I heard a lot about that. And it's an exciting book, and it talks about the things in your life. Sometimes we have a lot of clutter in our life, and to be directed and driven toward what makes us happy. And it makes me very happy when I get to embroider when I get to crochet a prayer shawl or a baby blanket. You know, that's the start of a life or at a point in the life at a point in a person's life, when they may need something to inspire them, something that that they can read scripture that they can wrap themselves in in a prayer show, or that a baby can be wrapped in the baby blanket. I think that's just an awesome way to document and documenting things with embroidery is just what we do.

Gresham Harkless 7:44

That makes perfect sense. Yeah, it's funny because a lot of times when you talk with, you know, CEOs or entrepreneurs or business owners, you always hear about that higher calling, like this is the path that I shouldn't be taking. But it's awesome that you're able to kind of take time on a daily basis to review the Scripture, but also be able to understand how that aligns with what it is that you're creating, and what it is that you're doing. So that's pretty awesome. Now, the next question that I had is really kind of like a word of wisdom or like I call a CEO nugget that you would kind of give to another entrepreneur or business owner that you've learned from being in business for the last 10 years. What SEO nugget do you have that can help us be maybe better entrepreneurs or business owners?

Cathy H Harkless 8:25

I like two things. I like Nike, just do it. Because a lot of times you delay, or you procrastinate, or you put things on home, I like just doing it, I just I like being put out, in the sense, just being placed on the ledge and jumping. Because there is no perfect time, there is no better time. And then something else is to never give up. Because when you take the leap of faith and you jump, sometimes things might look a little different than what you thought. And so when you never give up, you always look at what options you can take. Or maybe it's a different route in the journey that you thought or that you feel like you have to take when you do jump. But those two things, I think drive me.

Gresham Harkless 9:18

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And I know we have a lot of different are going to have a lot of different types of CEOs on this business, whether it be you know, part-time CEOs or people that are running, you know, big huge companies that have 1000s of employees or people that are running their business may be out of their parent's garage. So what I wanted to ask is just for you specifically what does being a CEO mean to you?

Cathy H Harkless 9:43

I think it's an awesome opportunity. Because in the last three years since I left the corporate world and have been devoting full time to the Yhtack in Stitches, the flexibility. The flexibility in meeting new people, the flexibility and being allowed to get up every morning, read my daily work, and take my walk, my walk of seven miles a day. That is devotion to my time, reading the daily word, listening to what God is telling me, and leading me in my life. And then also taking the journey of owning my business and doing my business. And again, the flexibility has been amazing. And having the time to be inspired to be creative. To actually have your own schedule is just the most amazing part of this journey that I've had.

Gresham Harkless 10:47

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, Cathy, Mom, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule, I just wanted to give you the floor to see if there was anything additional that you wanted to tell our readers or listeners. And just to see also how people can get a hold of you.

Cathy H Harkless 11:04

The thing that I'll say, again, is to get something that works for you. The daily Word works for me reading that each and every day, there are days that I really can't identify with it. Another thing I'll say, again, is to never give up doing your business, and being able to share that passion when I do logos for business clients to see the glimmer in their eyes, when they see their logo, to see their excitement excites me, and that keeps me going. But something that I'll say is to always focus on what you want to do. And always find a way to make sure that you do it. Because you sometimes can miss an opportunity. But if you try you can always look back and said you know what? You don't have to say, Could have, Would have, Should have, you can say I did. And this is what happened. And that's a different story. So I asked people to look at my business, to visit my website www.yhtack.com or call at 703-680-3416 that is where you can reach us and check out our website because it has been a great journey more so in the last three years of what we've done and how we've done it. And I can only see that we're gonna get better.

Gresham Harkless 12:38

Awesome, awesome, awesome. That's phenomenal words of wisdom, and again, I just really appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule to kind of speak with us. Let us know a little bit about you your background in the organization that you're leading. So, again, thank you so much. Thank you.

Outro 12:57

Thank you for listening to the I am CEO podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.com. I am CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and everywhere you listen to podcasts. SUBSCRIBE and leave us a five star rating. Grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I am CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening

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